reading and writing about why we work

10/04/2014

Frustration, Social Justice, and Motivation

I recently read an interview with a social worker in GiG: Americas Talk About Their Jobs. I was particularly interested in this interview because I spent a year after earning my bachelor's degree working as a social worker at Catholic Social Services in Los Angeles. Reading Elizabeth MacLean's description of her work, I was struck by how frustrated and angry she was with America's criminal justice system. I remember also feeling powerless against a system that did not seem concerned about the poor and disenfranchised in the same way that MacLean (who works for the public defenders office) feels powerless in a legal system she considers stacked against those accused of crimes. The legal system she describes sounds terrifying: committed more to alienation and anxiety than justice. But I also found some hope in MacLean's anger because despite all she has seen and experienced, she still longs for social justice. At one point, after railing about the chaos of the system for a few pages, MacLean declares "I actually really love this job...I believe very strongly in what we do here" (514). Her work defending those who have been written off by the legal system gives MacLean a sense of purpose despite what she sees as a system "geared towards dehumanizing the defendents"(516). Nearly thirty years after I spent that year working for Catholic Social Services, I still consider social justice to be my primary reason for working. I do not work in the criminal justice system like MacLean, but as a community college educator I can work every day to help people of all races and classes empower themselves as thinkers, writers, and leaders. Like MacLean, I work in a system--in my case an education system--I have profound concerns about. And like her, I keep coming back for another day to work for something better.